30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, October 22, 2012

Happy 40th Anniversary!

Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the Oakland A's win over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 7 of the 1972 World Series. The 3-2 win captured the A's first World Championship since its move to Oakland in 1968.

As a lifelong Athletics fan this team is very special to me, because I was born in 1972. At the time of their victory, I was less than two months old. So, obviously I didn't watch the series... but that doesn't keep me from collecting memorabilia from that memorable World Series.

1972 World Series Program

Game 6 Ticket Stub

1972 World Series Pennant

Plus in addition to this World Series being special for sentimental reasons, it was a great series altogether.

Besides the 8-1 pounding the Reds gave the Athletics in Game 6... every other game in the series was decided by one run.

World Series MVP

Gene Tenace had four home runs in the series. To put things into perspective, he only hit five home runs during the regular season. And the only other Athletic to hit a home run during the series was Joe Rudi and he only had one. Tenace also drove in 9 runs in the series. The other Athletics? Nobody on the team had more than one RBI and outside of Tenace, the team had only 7 RBI's combined.

Jim "Catfish" Hunter was the Athletics best starter during the regular season. And he was the best starting pitcher during the series. He was 2-0 with a 2.81 ERA against the Reds and pitched a solid 16 innings in three games.

And Rollie Fingers pitched in six games, allowing only 2 earned runs in 10.1 innings pitched. He recorded 2 saves and struck out 11 in the series.

In his second season as the Oakland Athletics manager, Williams led the team to the best record in the American League. His Athletics led the AL in home runs (134), shutouts (23), and saves (43). Unfortunately, Williams didn't get along with Charlie Finley, the A's owner. He resigned after the 1973 season.

Remarkably, the Athletics were able to win the World Series without their star right fielder, Reggie Jackson. Jackson had injured his hamstring stealing home against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 of the ALCS.

Congratulations to the 1972 World Champions! You'll forever be a huge part of my PC and baseball fanhood.

Most of us have a favorite franchise... possibly two. But...

Is there a specific team from a specific year that stands out in your collection?

8 comments:

Of course, this is the easiest question of all time. My favorite will always be the 1986 Mets, still the only baseball team I love to have won the World Series. I collect all Mets voraciously, but cards commemorating that year will hold a special place in my collection forever.

That was such a great World Series. I'm not a Mets or Red Sox fan, but was sort of pulling for both teams. I was hoping the Red Sox would break the Curse... and I was pulling for the Mets b/c I loved Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling. One of these days, I'd love to add a Ron Darling autograph to my collection.

Tough one but for now I'll give it to the 2011 Trenton Thunder (Yankees minor league affiliate).

The biggest reason is that my favorite Yankees Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos and Derek Jeter (who played 2 rehab games with this team) were on this roster. That's better than any championship team in my book.Plus some other names I liked were on the roster such as Phil Hughes, Austin Romine, Melky Mesa, Graham Stoneburner, Corban Joeseph and Naoya Okamoto.

Yep, not to mention the chance of getting an IP autograph of a potential future All Star (or even a HOFer?) and just being able to see the players so hungry and determined to reach the majors give the best performances they could possibly give.

1985 Topps featuring Tigers always stood out to me. '84 was the first World Series I really aware of, and by the time I was old enough to really get into cards, the spring of '87 the Tigers were once again looking like the best team in Baseball. At the time (and even today for that matter) I preferred the cards from '85 with the '84 stats on the back to the '84's.

I really liked the cards with old Tiger Stadium in the background. Off the top of my head the '85 Topps Kirk Gibson pops to mind.

About Me

I've been collecting cardboard off and on since the early 80's. I'm presently collecting. But who knows what the future holds in store for me.
One thing is for certain... I'll have my blog to help relive some of my favorite hobby moments.